My Friend Jeremy Hates The Kinks

Josh Verbanets

My friend—let's called him "Mr. Diehl"—hates The Kinks.  He thinks that they are the stupidest band in the history of the world.  Now, I would like very much to protect this man's identity, so I refuse to give out any further information regarding him personally.  Just know that he himself isn't afraid of you, or you, because he also believes that only stupid people like The Kinks.

This has gone on for around 8 years now—me listening to The Kinks, talking about The Kinks, playing in bands that pretend to be The Kinks, while my friend ridicules the whole thing.  You see, I really like The Kinks.  But I also think that I'm able to separate things that I like from things that I believe are "good."  So, when Jeremy D. presents his points to the contrary, I can sometimes see where he is coming from to a certain degree.  And, since I myself am not a current or past member of The Kinks or their management, I don’t take his digs personally.  I would now like to examine some of my friend Jeremy’s complaints, and evaluate, scientifically and objectively, whether or not The Kinks suck.*

*I do not know what the outcome will be.  To paraphrase Christopher Moltesanti from HBO’s The Sopranos, the readers of The New Yinzer will simply have to prepare themselves mentally for the fuckin’ possibility that The Kinks suck.  I am a man of logic and science, and am ready for anything.

COMPLAINT # 1:  THEIR SONGS SUCK.

Recently, my pal Jeremy pulled up a Youtube clip of The Kinks in some arena in the 1980’s playing “Victoria” from the Arthur album, only with cut-off sleeves and wanking guitar stuff, you know.  He had a hearty laugh at their appearance and antics, and used this as proof as to how much he hated the SONG they were playing. Instead, it made me realize that, even though the performance in itself is maybe “bad” by any non-1983 standards, the tune is actually 100% in line with my concept of a good song.  I’m not sure exactly why.   I am sort of bothered by it being played on a Jackson (™) guitar, with between-song banter ordering the crowd to GET UP AND SHAKE IT—but the song’s melody alone seems to tap into thousands of years of human evolution and just sounds “good” and “right” to me.  Nice and sing-songy, pleasant jumps between notes.  Some memorable, and often meaningful, words. 

I recall hearing the The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation album when I was 18 or 19, and being amazed at how every melody went exactly the way I wanted it to go, the way that I predicted it would go.  How each song was 2 minutes and twenty seconds long.  It was as if I had known this batch of recordings all my life.  This is no big shocker-- lots of people like that album and would take a bullet for it.  But I would take things further and say that Ray Davies, the main singer/songwriter of the band (you probably know who he is) never really wrote a BAD song.  In my conception of what a song is, even his not-so-great songs are still…well, pretty good.  Ray’s words, too:  he is able to get the idea across, sometimes in a silly or sarcastic way, being just poetic and frilly enough, and still actually say the son of a bitchin’ thing.  “Tired Of Waiting For You” is an example of a REALLY GOOD SONG lyric to me—one that seems so simple and dumb, but expresses something universally (though, with a unique voice) and memorably, all to a convenient steady beat.

Most are at least familiar with those iconic 60’s Kinks singles—“You Really Got Me,” and “All Day And All The Night,” not to mention your hometown rawk radio staples like “Lola” and “Come Dancing.”   I think that their big hit singles are wonderful, and all those deep-cut album tracks and b-sides are every bit as good.  For the reasons scientifically listed above, of course.

COMPLAINT # 2:  THEIR SOUND/PLAYING SUCKS.

My friend Jeremy also hates the way The Kinks and their recordings SOUND—“Uninspired Beatles Ripoff Bullshit” (he also hates the Beatles).  It doesn’t help that Jeremy has possibly read some nonsense about how The Kinks “created heavy metal with their distorted riffffffs” on Wikipedia or something.  

There is no denying that, for me, the concept of the Kinks as a band is directly tied to Kinks recordings.  Those early garage-rock singles sound out-of-this-world.  More fidelity, better bite to guitars, and intentional energy than anything else that had happened up to that point, a true marvel of recording.  As time goes on, their recordings take shape and evolve perfectly for the types of tunes they are tackling—frills and acoustics in the late 60’s, drunken howled harmonies through the 70’s, new-wave beats and delay in the 80’s.  Not to mention that their singer occasionally sings in a goofy voice, using fake accents and stuff, which I have an affinity for for some reason.    

The Kinks as musicians?  Absolutely better than the Beatles, Stones, Who, or any of the big 60’s pop bands that you might compare them to.  Mick Avory doesn’t do panicked off-time drum fills like the drummers in most of the aforementioned bands.  The Kinks are in-tune, know all sorts of clever chords, and arrange their stuff brilliantly.  They're technically better than their contemporaries, and they were recording in several-hour busts like the rest of them.  I won’t compare this band’s precision or abilities to the Claptons, Buddy Richs, and other virtuosos of the world, because the intent of the music seems to be completely different. Please pardon the cliché, but all elements of the band’s playing seem to support the song rather than create it outright.  For example, the lead guitar playing on the Kinks track “Phenomenal Cat” is my all-time favorite guitar playing on a song, ever.  And it’s little more than some chimey lines that hang under the melody.

Live, Ray is kind of a dope.  He is a painful, unforgivable showman about songs that aren't really showy at all, and he seems to not really be in on the joke.  Kurt Cobain would have told people to get up and dance as a gag, but not Ray Davies.  He wants people to dance to his song about the Superficial Man Who Lives Next Door.  What else can we dock them points for?  Ahh, yes.  Lead guitarist, and long-suffering younger brother, Dave Davies’ raucous ROCK solos—the kind of stuff that people get geeked out and usually write about, are perfect early examples of employing what musicologists call the "Bullshit Solo"—not much a melodic solo, but more kind of an I-know-where-to-put-my-fingers-and-it-will-sound-ok solo.  Dave’s are still miles above other bullshit solos, though.  For tone alone, I would rather listen to him than Yingvee (but not Jimmy Page—he’s the best at BSs).  Perhaps it’s the jealously speaking, though:  as I enter my late twenties, I find myself somewhat jealous about the concept of a goofy moptop famous at 17 and already perfecting the Bullshit Solo. 

Oh yeah.  And their first bass player Pete Quiafe (who just passed away last year) is still my hands-down favorite of that wave of British Invasion bass players.  More on his descending bass-lines later. 

COMPLAINT # 3:  THE PERCEPTION OF THE BAND SUCKS.

Wherein we examine the Kinks, their environment, and the personal connection between Kinks fans and the band.

My friend Jeremy didn’t grow up listening to the Kinks, or to classic rock radio in general.  He was instead reared on slightly more progressive genres: instrumental music, American indie rock, technical acoustic pieces.  This probably accounts for a great deal of our differences.  

I also can’t separate The Kinks from my own personal memories and experiences.  My dad liked The Kinks and would listen to them on Christmas morning (instead of carols) in the car when we would go to pick up my great aunt.  I have memories of reading the liner notes, about how Ray had written "You Really Got Me" on a piano.  At his PARENTS' HOUSE?!?!?!  This couldn't be right.  A misprint at the public-domain-cd-company-inc factory.  There were sarcastic English songs for when I thought I was hip.  There were curious introspective songs for when I thought I was alone.  And there were impassioned songs about women for when I thought I was in love.  All those little character songs that have been analyzed before, the ones where Ray writes from the perspective of a character or about a character he knows personally.  The Kinks took something that I already felt—that music itself is humorous, that the concept of writing and performing is already egotistical and silly in and of itself—and gave it perfect verses and choruses.

I bonded with friends over The Kinks.    One evening, at a Chinese buffet, a friend and I came up with THE ULTIMATE KINKS record.  You know-- snotty jokes on Kinks songs.  Songs like “Descending Bassline” (because, har har, there’s a ton of Kinks songs that have a bassline that goes down, down, down) and THERE IS A CLASS SEPARATION IN ENGLAND, and THE SUPERFICIAL MAN WHO LIVES NEAR ME WHO DOESN’T KNOW HE IS SUPERFICIAL AND EVERYONE THINKS HE IS OK, BUT I KNOW THAT HE IS REALLY SUPERFICIAL. 

I could spend an entire separate article analyzing bands that say they are “influenced” by the Kinks.  But guitar riffs and snotty vocals do not a Kinks sound make.  I don’t see how the Arctic Monkeys “sound like” The Kinks other than playing guitars and having voices; to me, The Kinks sound like those elements in support of unique and inimitable songwriting.

CONCLUSION

I don’t argue very much about music these days.  Especially not with my Friend Jeremy.
But, in this case, I can empirically conclude that, not only do I like The Kinks, but they do not suck.  And my friend Jeremy is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Josh Verbanets is a songwriter and performer from Pittsburgh, PA.  He fronts the garage-pop band Meeting of Important People, works days at The Carnegie Museum of Natural History, and wants to have his ashes scattered over Conneaut Lake.